EXCLUSIVE: Tinubu Plots To Take Over ADC Coalition
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has raised the alarm over what it described as a “desperate and dangerous plot” by elements within the administration of President Bola Tinubu to destabilise and take over the opposition coalition.
In a statement issued on Monday, ADC’s Interim National Publicity Secretary and National Spokesperson, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, alleged that former state chairmen and key members of the party’s executive committees in the North East and North West have been invited to a secret meeting with senior officials of the Federal Government.
“We have credible intelligence that the aim of this meeting is not for national security or peacebuilding. It is to intimidate, coerce, and if possible, co-opt these individuals into a fabricated scheme against the opposition coalition. This is not politics. This is sabotage,” the statement read.
According to the ADC, the objective of the clandestine meeting is to create confusion within the party ranks, delegitimise its new leadership, and stall its momentum as the “new face of the opposition in Nigeria.”
“Let it be clear, this surreptitious dalliance with the ADC State Chairpersons by appointees of the federal government who should be focused on urgent national security priorities and challenges that the country is facing is a coordinated assault on multiparty democracy. This is how one-party states are born, through intimidation,” the party stated.
The ADC pointed to recent developments, particularly the July 1st Coalition Declaration and the July 2nd unveiling of the ADC as a reinvigorated opposition force, as having “rattled the ruling party.”
“It is now obvious that the Tinubu administration, having lost the trust of the Nigerian people, cannot withstand the pressure of a united and credible opposition. But rather than correct its ways, it has resorted to its old playbook of destabilising opposition parties,” Abdullahi said.
He added that the coalition movement represents a new hope for Nigerians weary of “lies, manipulation, and hardship.”
“This party belongs to every Nigerian who wants to restore decency, vision, and justice to governance. We would therefore not allow a handful of desperate men to turn Nigeria into a one-party dictatorship. And it would be our patriotic duty to resist it with every democratic means available to us.”
The ADC called on President Tinubu to rein in those allegedly involved in the plot and reaffirm his commitment to democratic values.
“We call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take note of these sinister moves by some of his appointees and call them to order. The president needs to prove to Nigerians that he is indeed a Democrat.
“He needs to remind his men that if the Goodluck Jonathan administration were as intolerant and as subversive of the opposition, the APC would not have come to power in 2015 and he would not have been a President today.”
